Boy killed by truck tire

Split rims take another victim.
8 year old boy killed by truck tire.

Mark Do you know for a fact it was a split rim type wheel. I see no mention of the rim . Just talks about an explosion. I guess my question could a 120lb tire just explode and kill someone?

I sure must have trouble reading as no where in that article did I read where it was a split rim.

Sure could if it was rotten and/or too much air put in to it.

No, I don't know for certain it was a split rim. But I'd be surprised if it was not.

> Sure could if it was rotten and/or too much air put in to it.

Even if the tire doesn't appear rotten, a tire is only as good as its weakest spot. That's OSHA requires the use a tire inflation cage for truck tires. When I was a teenager I worked next door to a tire shop. One day I heard and explosion and saw a guy the size of an NFL lineman get blown across the parking lot. He didn't die, but was injured pretty bad. I'm pretty sure that was the last time anyone there tried to inflate a truck tire without using the cage.

Really feel bad for the parents and all family. Prayers for comfort go out to them.

Hard to tell but speculating such a shop uses a clip on style chuck to air tires and for some reason was overinflated to check for that leak.

The concussion would be enough to Kill someone that small at close range.

We had a local guy who was airing up a tire on a drop center car rim and the tire blew up. It missed him going up, but bounced off of an overhead canopy and hit him on the way back down. It hurt him pretty bad, but he recovered and is back at work again. I don't know the details, but have speculated that he was trying to install a tire on a rim that it wasn't sized for.

There's a lot of stored energy in an inflated tire.

So sorry to hear about the loss of the young man's life.

Paul

Same thing happened in a goodyear tire store in east aurora ny.years ago,mechanic was killed in that one.Bill M.

I feel for the family, but I dought it was a split rim, unless the truck they were working on was old.

Correct, it didn't say it was a split rim BUT any tire may suffer a zipper cut (weak point in sidewall) especially if it were run flat or on low air pressure even a short distance.

Knew a guy die from inflating a truck tire and it zippered and he was fatally injured by the concussion.

I'm sorry for the boy.
but it was plain stupid to keep increasing tire pressure to try to find a small leak.
By pooring water over the tire at normal pressure they would've found that pinhole leak in a hartbeat,and the boy would still be alive.

I guess there is no cure for stupidity.

A sidewall zipper can really tear things up- I lost a front at 70 on my F350 PS dually, blew out both sidewalls but the tread belt stayed together and it never came off the rim. Did $9000 in damage though, ballooned the fender, broke the runningboard and inner fender, cracked the windshield, bent the big Super Duty bumper, chunks dented both doors and scratched the dually fender

Split rims were used right up 'til 1979, especially on Chevy c-series medium-duty trucks. They are time bombs waiting to go off, and it doesn't take much mis-handling for a rim to separate. I worked in a truck salvage yard doing tires for 25 years, with hammer and bars. I recall the East Aurora incident and recall in the 80's Larry Minor from a tire shop in Fort Erie dying when a 16 inch chevy one-ton rim came apart, uncaged. It broke a customer's jaw too. The force from a tire exploding can remove all clothes, including laced on boots, and throw a human 100 feet. I can't imagine why a second grade child was near such an operation. Sad. Many farms have equipment as old as 1979, or older, and these vehicles likey have split rims. They should be deflated before un-bolting and removal, and replaced with one-piece rims right away. If this accident was caused by split rims, it's in-excusable. Regardless, all tires should be caged while filling and the tire man standing away from the sides, using long air hoses and chucks. I myself never want to die, or kill someone, over a piece of rubber.

Couple of years ago, I was called upon to fix the side of the box on a Chevy 1 ton with single rear wheels that blew the left rear tire towing a fifth wheel camper.

I was surprised I was able to fix and reskin what was there instead of replacing the entire side.

Thats bad. Ouch! I wonder how much of that damage is or was caused by CAFE standards to get fuel economy up to meet never ending increases of raising the national bar. I guess that I could understand the inner and outer fender. OK, I can understand that. But when the bumber, running board, and windshield get torn up, one has to wonder how, and my guess is lighter weight components to meet newer, newer, and newer CAFE standards. Lucky for you it was a Super Duty. Had it been a compact or subcompact, especially a hybrid or all electric, holy cow, they'd be sweeping pieces of it and you up. I see cars, and you and everyone else does as well, big dents and tears in them for no reason, as though they were made out of soup cans...to meet CAFE standards. Like the late Dale Ernhardt said of the restricter plate rule in NASCAR, "...going to get someone killed..." and he was the first. The same can be said of CAFE standards that dictate smaller, thinner, lighter in the name of mandated standards that can't make vehicles safer. Going to get people killed, and no one in Washington will be held accountable after they are long gone from office, politics aside.

And by the way for the subject in general, my condolences for the family of such a tragic accident, no matter the cause. Innocent little kids deserve far better. Tragic. Just tragic. My guess is that someone is kicking themselves now, and the little kid aint comin back.

Mark

i was always told that 3 piece rims were the unpredictable ones, though I"ve never seen one. We mounted dozens of 10.00 20"s on 2 piece daytons when i was a kid, proper inspection & assy being paramount to saftey.

This brings up another point. NEVER heat or weld a rim with the tire still mounted. That also includes using a torch on stubborn lug nuts, or even a badly dragging brake drum producing excess heat.

It will start a process called pyrolysis. Bridgestone has produced a video on this you can find on YouTube. I don't know how to post the link, but it is easy to find.

Just Google "welding rim and tire bridgestone". It will then come up with some options, the video you want is "Wheels of Fire". DOUG

Friend of mine took a pretty good hit when he was installing a brand new tire. The bead broke when he inflated it, threw him across the room.

They can go at any time; I once saw a tractor tire blow apart (actually the rusted out rim) about an hour after it had been inflated. Almost blew the door off the shed.

I had a 16-9-30 rear tractor tire blow up in my face 4 weeks ago. The tire was used and when i was puttin air in it to seat the beads i bent down to take the hose off and check the pressure it blew up and right off the rim in my face. I only had about 28 to 30 psi in the tire to. Luckly i didn't get hurt to bad alittle brused. I sure did learn a new respect for tires.

heres a pyrolysis link. Bill M.
pyrolysis.

My tire guy was here last week doing an install and just told me about a customer of his busting his arm and being hospitalized after inflating a combine tire because he left the clip on air chuck on too long.

Two different wheels?

Radial semi tires have the wire belts run from bead to bead up the sidewall, under the tread and down the other sidewall. When a tire is run soft and the sidewall flexes it is the same as bending a piece of wire many times until it breaks. The flexing causes the wire supports to be weak and when the tire is inflated even to a low pressure they can fail. That is why we are required to inflate all tires in a cage although since it is the air pressure that cause injury and not objects the cage only helps. This explains it better than I can.

http://www.retread.org/packet/index.cfm/ID/178.htm

So sad to hear of someone losing their life (especially a youngster) to such stupidity. We have a neighbor that was hit by a split rim in the head many years ago. He survived and recovered but has a large dent in his forehead that his hat never fit right afterward. It's often been said that the only way he survived it was "it just wasn't his time". With that lesson in mind, I worked in a truck garage in my Jr year of high school when there wasn't farming to do. One day Dad gave me a 6' hose whip that clipped on a tire valve and had a standard Schrader valve on the other end. I was instructed to keep it in my tool box and when I worked on a tire whether caged or not to inflate it from one side out of line with the rim or sidewall. I was changing out the 10.00-20 steers on an Astro 95 one afternoon and was rolling one of the tires to the cage to bring it up to pressure with my whip in my back pocket and was intercepted by old mean a$$ Bob one of the worst I've ever worked with. He slammed the tire split rim down one the floor and grabbed my whip and threw it out the door, ' YOU F&%^$* PUNK KIDS TAKE TOO LONG DOING THIS WORK!' and he shoved me out of the way. He got on top of the tire and reached down and started putting air to it. I went out the door and picked up my whip hose. When I turned around there was an incredible boom that launched Bob and the tire about 3 feet off the floor and Bob went all of 350+ pounds. I was about 30' away and felt the concussion. Bob was laying about 6' away and the tire landed back on the launch pad. The front ring of the split rim blew off. I walked over and stood the tire up to roll it out of the way. Bob layed there dazed but apparently only suffering a very bruised ego (and possably a$$). I stated "I'll just stick to the way I was taught,Thanks". Funny how Bob just left me alone after that.

Back in the days before truck tire cages were required, the local truck stop would back a truck or even a customer car over a truck wheel while it was being inflated. They used a hose whip, too. Every time.

Fast forward 30 years, and I saw a guy get the top of his head taken off when a two-piece rim on a piece of forestry equipment blew. I was just the auditor but I had to call the ambulance when the manager was too shaken to make the call. Called my boss, told him that audit was cancelled and drove on to the next woodyard location.

It must be a tubless tire. It would serve no cause to air up a split rim to find the leak, as they all have tubes in them. You have to take them apart and remove the tube to find the hole in the tube. Split rims havnt been used on semis for 25 years. Yes if a tubless tire has been run flat it will explode with as little as 25 pounds of air in them.